Transfer learning for bilingual content classification

ABSTRACT

This disclosure provides systems and methods for determining a classification model for a secondary language different from a primary language. A social networking server is configured to obtain primary language content written in a first spoken language and secondary language content written in a second spoken language. The social networking server further obtains a machine translation of the primary language content. The social networking server then determines an initial language model from the machine translation. The social networking further determines a language model perturbation using the initial language model, where the language model perturbation accounts for a difference between the machine translation and the secondary language content. The social networking server also determines a classification model from the initial language model and the language model perturbation, which is then applied to a plurality of comments associated with an item of interest provided by a social networking service.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of priority to U.S. Pat. App. No.62/073,556, titled “TRANSFER LEARNING FOR BILINGUAL CONTENTCLASSIFICATION” and filed Oct. 31, 2014, the disclosure of which ishereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The subject matter disclosed herein generally relates to classifyingsecondary language content as relevant or irrelevant, and, inparticular, to applying a transfer learning process to train a languageclassifier for classifying the secondary language content usingmachine-translated primary language content and natively writtensecondary language content.

BACKGROUND

Popular online content providers attract millions of visitors per day.The content providers may provide one or more webpages having contentreadable by the various visitors. The one or more webpages may beconfigured to allow the visitors to provide feedback (e.g., comments)for the subject of the one or more webpages. For example, a webpage maybe a news article and the online content provider may allow visitors toprovide comments about the article.

However, to facilitate discussion among visitors, online contentproviders may not screen (e.g., moderate) comments left by the visitors.If comments are not screened, malicious visitors (e.g., spammers orother irresponsible visitors) may leave comments that are irrelevant tothe topic of the given webpage. These comments may include offers towork from home, product promotions, event promotions, advertising,marketing materials, and other such comments. These types of commentsare problematic because they detract from the open forum promoted by theonline content provider and drive legitimate visitors (e.g., visitorsthat leave comments relating to the topic of the webpage) away. This, inturn, reduces the overall visitor traffic to the online contentprovider. As online content providers typically rely on visitor trafficto generate revenue, a decrease in legitimate visitors impacts theonline content provider's ability to generate such revenue.

Furthermore, an online content provider may support receiving commentsin one or more languages. However, the online content provider may nothave access to sufficient information to identify potentiallyproblematic comments (e.g., where the online content provider operatesprimarily in the English language but supports the ability to comment inanother language, such as Spanish or German). Thus, identifying ormoderating comments provided in a language other than the primarylanguage of the online content provider may be difficult.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Some embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not limitation inthe figures of the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a network architecture, includinga social networking server, according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates a graphical user interface displaying an irrelevantcomment submitted by a user, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of the social networking server ofFIG. 1, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIGS. 4A-4B illustrate a method, according to an example embodiment, forclassifying and identifying comments written in a secondary language.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating components of a machine,according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from amachine-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium) andperform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Example methods and systems are directed to classifying secondarylanguage content as relevant or irrelevant, and, in particular, toapplying a transfer learning process to train a language classifier forclassifying the secondary language content using machine-translatedprimary language content and natively written secondary languagecontent. The disclosed embodiments include a client-server architecturewhere a social networking server has access to a social graph of itssocial networking members. The social networking server includes variousmodules and engines that obtain human-written primary language contentand human-written secondary language content from the content providedby the social networking members. The modules and engines of the socialnetworking server further include language translators and featureidentifiers to facilitate the translation of the human-written primarylanguage content, and to identify features in the translated content inthe human-written secondary language content.

Using the identified features, the social networking server then employsvarious modules to select the features from the correspondingmachine-translated secondary language content and the human-writtensecondary language content. The social networking server further appliesa re-weighing methodology to match the machine-translated secondarylanguage content with the human-written secondary language content. Alanguage model is then obtained from the re-weighed features, and thelanguage model is adaptively updated where a predetermined amount oflabeled information is available for the human-written secondarylanguage content. The language model is then applied as a classifier tocomments posted in the secondary language in an attempt to identifythose comments which are relevant in the context in which they areposted.

Accordingly, this disclosure provides, in one embodiment, a system thatincludes a machine-readable memory storing computer-executableinstructions and at least one hardware processor in communication withthe machine-readable memory that, when the computer-executableinstructions are executed, is configured to obtain primary languagecontent written in a first spoken language, obtain secondary languagecontent written in a second spoken language, and obtain a machinetranslation of the primary language content. The at least one hardwareprocessor is further configured to determine an initial language modelfrom the machine translation of the primary language content, determinea language model perturbation using the initial language model, thelanguage model perturbation accounting for a difference between themachine translation of the primary language content and the secondarylanguage content, and determine a classification model from the initiallanguage model and the language model perturbation, the classificationmodel identifying whether a given plurality of words are irrelevant.

In addition, the at least one hardware processor is further configuredto apply the classification model to a plurality of comments associatedwith an item of interest provided by a social networking service, andprevent the display of at least one comment selected from the pluralityof comments in response to classifying the at least one comment asirrelevant using the classification model.

In another embodiment of the disclosed system, the at least one hardwareprocessor is further configured to determine a first plurality offeatures from the machine translation of the primary language content,and determine a second plurality of features from the secondary languagecontent, wherein the determined initial language model is determinedfrom the first plurality of features and the second plurality offeatures.

In a further embodiment of the disclosed system, at least some of thefeatures of the first plurality of features are different from at leastsome of the features of the second plurality of features.

In yet another embodiment of the disclosed system, the at least onehardware processor is further configured to determine a plurality ofweights for a selected set of the first plurality of features, theplurality of weights being determined according to Kernel Mean Matching(KMM) using a distribution of the second plurality of features.

In yet a further embodiment of the disclosed system, the language modelperturbation is further determined using at least one feature selectedfrom the second plurality of features.

In another embodiment of the disclosed system, the first spoken languageis different from the second spoken language.

In a further embodiment of the disclosed system, the initial languagemodel comprises a regularized logistic regression model.

This disclosure also provides for a method that includes obtaining, byat least one hardware processor, primary language content written in afirst spoken language, obtaining, by the at least one hardwareprocessor, secondary language content written in a second spokenlanguage, and obtaining, by the at least one hardware processor, amachine translation of the primary language content. The method alsoincludes determining, by the at least one hardware processor, an initiallanguage model from the machine translation of the primary languagecontent, determining, by the at least one hardware processor, a languagemodel perturbation using the initial language model, the language modelperturbation accounting for a difference between the machine translationof the primary language content and the secondary language content, anddetermining, by the at least one hardware processor, a classificationmodel from the initial language model and the language modelperturbation, the classification model identifying whether a givenplurality of words are irrelevant.

In addition, the method includes applying, by the at least one hardwareprocessor, the classification model to a plurality of commentsassociated with an item of interest provided by a social networkingservice, and preventing, by the at least one hardware processor, thedisplay of at least one comment selected from the plurality of commentsin response to classifying the at least one comment as irrelevant usingthe classification model.

In another embodiment of the disclosed method, the method includesdetermining a first plurality of features from the machine translationof the primary language content, and determining a second plurality offeatures from the secondary language content, wherein determining theinitial language model comprises determining the initial language modelfrom the first plurality of features and the second plurality offeatures.

In a further embodiment of the disclosed method, at least some of thefeatures of the first plurality of features are different from at leastsome of the features of the second plurality of features.

In yet another embodiment of the disclosed method, the method includesdetermining a plurality of weights for a selected set of the firstplurality of features, the plurality of weights being determinedaccording to Kernel Mean Matching (KMM) using a distribution of thesecond plurality of features.

In yet a further embodiment of the disclosed method, the language modelperturbation is further determined using at least one feature selectedfrom the second plurality of features.

In another embodiment of the disclosed method, the first spoken languageis different from the second spoken language.

In a further embodiment of the disclosed method, the initial languagemodel comprises a regularized logistic regression model.

This disclosure further provides for a machine-readable medium storingcomputer-executable instructions that, when executed by at least onehardware processor, cause the at least one hardware processor to performa plurality of operations, the plurality of operations comprisingobtaining primary language content written in a first spoken language,obtaining secondary language content written in a second spokenlanguage, and obtaining a machine translation of the primary languagecontent. The plurality of operations also include determining an initiallanguage model from the machine translation of the primary languagecontent, determining a language model perturbation using the initiallanguage model, the language model perturbation accounting for adifference between the machine translation of the primary languagecontent and the secondary language content, and determining aclassification model from the initial language model and the languagemodel perturbation, the classification model identifying whether a givenplurality of words are irrelevant.

Furthermore, the plurality of operations include applying theclassification model to a plurality of comments associated with an itemof interest provided by a social networking service, and preventing thedisplay of at least one comment selected from the plurality of commentsin response to classifying the at least one comment as irrelevant usingthe classification model.

In another embodiment of the disclosed machine-readable medium, theplurality of operations further comprise determining a first pluralityof features from the machine translation of the primary language contentand determining a second plurality of features from the secondarylanguage content, and determining the initial language model comprisesdetermining the initial language model from the first plurality offeatures and the second plurality of features.

In a further embodiment of the disclosed machine-readable medium, atleast some of the features of the first plurality of features aredifferent from at least some of the features of the second plurality offeatures.

In yet another embodiment of the disclosed machine-readable medium, theplurality of operations further comprise determining a plurality ofweights for a selected set of the first plurality of features, theplurality of weights being determined according to Kernel Mean Matching(KMM) using a distribution of the second plurality of features.

In yet a further embodiment of the disclosed machine-readable medium,the language model perturbation is further determined using at least onefeature selected from the second plurality of features.

In another embodiment of the disclosed machine-readable medium, thefirst spoken language is different from the second spoken language.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, components and functions areoptional and may be combined or subdivided, and operations may vary insequence or be combined or subdivided. In the following description, forpurposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth toprovide a thorough understanding of example embodiments. It will beevident to one skilled in the art, however, that the present subjectmatter may be practiced without these specific details.

With reference to FIG. 1, an example embodiment of a high-levelclient-server-based network architecture 102 is shown. A socialnetworking server 112 provides server-side functionality via a network114 (e.g., the Internet or a wide area network (WAN)) to one or moreclient devices 104. FIG. 1 illustrates, for example, a web client 106(e.g., a browser, such as the Internet Explorer® browser developed byMicrosoft® Corporation of Redmond, Wash. State), an application 108, anda programmatic client 110 executing on the client device 104. The socialnetworking server 112 is further communicatively coupled with one ormore database servers 124 that provide access to one or more databases116-120.

The client device 104 may comprise, but is not limited to, a mobilephone, desktop computer, laptop, portable digital assistant (PDA), smartphone, tablet, ultra book, netbook, laptop, multi-processor system,microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics system, or anyother communication device that a user 122 may utilize to access thesocial networking server 112. In some embodiments, the client device 104may comprise a display module (not shown) to display information (e.g.,in the form of user interfaces). In further embodiments, the clientdevice 104 may comprise one or more of touch screens, accelerometers,gyroscopes, cameras, microphones, global positioning system (GPS)devices, and so forth. The client device 104 may be a device of a user122 that is used to perform one or more searches for user profilesaccessible to, or maintained by, the social networking server 112.

In one embodiment, the social networking server 112 is a network-basedappliance that responds to initialization requests or access queriesfrom the client device 104. One or more users 122 may be a person, amachine, or other means of interacting with the client device 104. Invarious embodiments, the user 122 is not part of the networkarchitecture 102, but may interact with the network architecture 102 viathe client device 104 or another means. For example, one or moreportions of the network 114 may be an ad hoc network, an intranet, anextranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a local area network (LAN), awireless LAN (WLAN), a wide area network (WAN), a wireless WAN (WWAN), ametropolitan area network (MAN), a portion of the Internet, a portion ofthe Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a cellular telephonenetwork, a wireless network, a WiFi network, a WiMax network, anothertype of network, or a combination of two or more such networks.

The client device 104 may include one or more applications (alsoreferred to as “apps”) such as, but not limited to, a web browser,messaging application, electronic mail (email) application, socialnetworking access client, and the like. In some embodiments, if thesocial networking access client is included in the client device 104,then this application is configured to locally provide the userinterface and at least some of the functionalities of a socialnetworking service, with the application configured to communicate withthe social networking server 112, on an as needed basis, for data and/orprocessing capabilities not locally available (e.g., to access a memberprofile, to authenticate a user 122, to identify or locate otherconnected members, etc.). Conversely, if the social networking accessclient is not included in the client device 104, the client device 104may use its web browser to access the initialization and/or searchfunctionalities of the social networking server 112.

One or more users 122 may be a person, a machine, or other means ofinteracting with the client device 104. In example embodiments, the user122 is not part of the network architecture 102, but may interact withthe network architecture 102 via the client device 104 or other means.For instance, the user 122 provides input (e.g., touch screen input oralphanumeric input) to the client device 104 and the input iscommunicated to the network architecture 102 via the network 114. Inthis instance, the social networking server 112, in response toreceiving the input from the user 122, communicates information to theclient device 104 via the network 114 to be presented to the user 122.In this way, the user 122 can interact with the social networking server112 using the client device 104.

Further, while the client-server-based network architecture 102 shown inFIG. 1 employs a client-server architecture, the present subject matteris of course not limited to such an architecture, and could equally wellfind application in a distributed, or peer-to-peer, architecture system,for example.

In addition to the client device 104, the social networking server 112communicates with one or more database server(s) 124 and/or database(s)116-120. In one embodiment, the social networking server 112 iscommunicatively coupled to a member activity database 116, a socialgraph database 118, and a member profile database 120. The databases116-120 may be implemented as one or more types of databases including,but not limited to, a hierarchical database, a relational database, anobject-oriented database, one or more flat files, or combinationsthereof.

The member profile database 120 stores member profile information aboutmembers who have registered with the social networking server 112.Consistent with some embodiments, when a person initially registers tobecome a member of the social networking service provided by the socialnetworking server 112, the person will be prompted to provide somepersonal information, such as his or her name, age (e.g., birthdate),gender, interests, contact information, home town, address, spouse'sand/or family members' names, educational background (e.g., schools,majors, matriculation and/or graduation dates, etc.), employmenthistory, skills, professional organizations, and so on. This informationis stored, for example, in the member profile database 120. Similarly,when a representative of an organization initially registers theorganization with the social networking service provided by the socialnetworking server 112, the representative may be prompted to providecertain information about the organization. This information may bestored, for example, in the member profile database 120. In someembodiments, the profile data may be processed (e.g., in the backgroundor offline) to generate various derived profile data. For example, if amember has provided information about various job titles the member hasheld with the same company or different companies, and for how long,this information can be used to infer or derive a member profileattribute indicating the member's overall seniority level, or senioritylevel within a particular company. In some embodiments, importing orotherwise accessing data from one or more externally hosted data sourcesmay enhance profile data for both members and organizations. Forinstance, with companies in particular, financial data may be importedfrom one or more external data sources, and made part of a company'sprofile.

Members of the social networking service provided by the socialnetworking server 112 may establish connections with one or more membersand/or organizations of the social networking service. The connectionsmay be defined as a social graph, where the member and/or organizationis represented by a vertex in the social graph and the edges identifyconnections between vertices. In this regard, the edges may be bilateral(e.g., two members and/or organizations have agreed to form aconnection), unilateral (e.g., one member has agreed to form aconnection with another member), or combinations thereof. In thismanner, members are said to be first-degree connections where a singleedge connects the vertices representing the members; otherwise, membersare said to be “nth”-degree connections where “n” is defined as thenumber of edges separating the two vertices representing the members. Asan example, two members are said to be “second-degree” connections wherethe members share a connection in common, but are not directly connectedto one another. In one embodiment, the social graph maintained by thesocial networking server 112 is stored in the social graph database 118.

Although the foregoing discussion refers to a “social graph” in thesingular, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that thesocial graph database 118 may be configured to store multiple socialgraphs. For example, and without limitation, the social networkingserver 112 may maintain multiple social graphs, where each social graphcorresponds to various geographic regions, industries, members, orcombinations thereof. As discussed below, in generating the variousindices, the social networking server 112 may be configured to generatea single graph or multiple graphs.

As members interact with the social networking service provided by thesocial networking server 112, the social networking server 112 isconfigured to monitor these interactions. Examples of interactionsinclude, but are not limited to, commenting on content posted by othermembers, viewing member profiles, editing or viewing a member's ownprofile, sharing content outside of the social networking service (e.g.,an article provided by an entity other than the social networking server112), updating a current status, posting content for other members toview and/or comment on, and other such interactions. In one embodiment,these interactions are stored in a member activity database 116, whichassociates interactions made by a member with his or her member profilestored in the member profile database 120.

In one embodiment, the social networking server 112 communicates withthe various databases 116-120 through one or more database server(s)124. In this regard, the database server(s) 124 provide one or moreinterfaces and/or services for providing content to, modifying contentstored in, retrieving content from, or otherwise interacting with thedatabases 116-120. For example, and without limitation, such interfacesand/or services may include one or more Application ProgrammingInterfaces (APIs), one or more services provided via a Service-OrientedArchitecture (SOA), one or more services provided via a REST-OrientedArchitecture (ROA), or combinations thereof. In an alternativeembodiment, the social networking server 112 communicates with thedatabases 116-120 and includes a database client, engine, and/or module,for providing data to, modifying data stored within, and/or retrievingdata from, the one or more databases 116-120.

One of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the databaseserver(s) 124 may include one or more different types of servers. Forexample, the database server(s) 124 may include a Microsoft® ExchangeServer, a Microsoft® Sharepoint® Server, a Lightweight Directory AccessProtocol (“LDAP”) server, any other server configured to provide userprofile information, or combinations thereof. Accordingly, and in oneembodiment, the servers in communication with the social networkingserver 112 are configured to access the various databases 116-120 andretrieve or store corresponding information.

FIG. 2 illustrates a graphical user interface 202 displaying anirrelevant comment 206 submitted by a user, in accordance with anexample embodiment. As shown in FIG. 2, the graphical user interface 202displays content submitted by a first user. In the example shown in FIG.2, the content includes the words, “Noticed a lot of folks looking at myprofile so I updated it some. Thank you!” The content is written in afirst language, namely, English. As the content has been provided by asocial networking member, the content is considered “human-written.” Thecontent shown in FIG. 2 may be stored in one or more of the databasesshown in FIG. 1, such as the member activity database 116. In additionto the content, various users have submitted comments 204. In general,the comments 204 are relevant to the social networking member's content.However, some of the comments 204, such as the comment 206, areirrelevant. In this case, the irrelevant comment 206 should be removedand not displayed to the social networking members who have posted theother comments 204. The comment 206 is irrelevant because it relates toa social networking member searching for an employment opportunity andnot to the content provided by the initial user. The comment 206 isdetectable as an irrelevant or “spam” comment because it is written inthe language of the initial content.

However, there may be instances where comments provided by the socialnetworking members are written in a language different from the languageof the initial content. Accordingly, it would be beneficial to removeirrelevant comments written in these secondary languages. The belowdisclosure relates to training a classifier using translated primarylanguage content and human-written secondary language content. As usedin this disclosure, the phrase “primary language” generally means“native language” and “secondary language” means “foreign language.” Oneexample is where the primary language is English and the secondarylanguage is Chinese. Another example is where the primary language isSpanish and the secondary language is German.

FIG. 3 illustrates the social networking server 112 of FIG. 1 inaccordance with an example embodiment. In one embodiment, the socialnetworking server 112 includes one or more processor(s) 302, one or morecommunication interface(s) 304, and a machine-readable medium 306 thatstores computer-executable instructions for one or more modules(s) 308and data 310 used to support one or more functionalities of the modules308.

The various functional components of the social networking server 112may reside on a single device or may be distributed across severalcomputers in various arrangements. The various components of the socialnetworking server 112 may, furthermore, access one or more databases(e.g., the databases 116-120 or any of the data 310), and each of thevarious components of the social networking server 112 may be incommunication with one or more other components. Further, while thecomponents of FIG. 3 are discussed in the singular sense, it will beappreciated that in other embodiments multiple instances of thecomponents may be employed.

The one or more processors 302 may be any type of commercially availableprocessor, such as processors available from the Intel Corporation,Advanced Micro Devices, or Texas Instruments, or other such processors.Further still, the one or more processors 302 may include one or morespecial-purpose processors, such as a Field-Programmable Gate Array(FPGA) or an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). The one ormore processors 302 may also include programmable logic or circuitrythat is temporarily configured by software to perform certainoperations. Thus, once configured by such software, the one or moreprocessors 302 become specific machines (or specific components of amachine) uniquely tailored to perform the configured functions and areno longer general-purpose processors.

The one or more communication interfaces 304 are configured tofacilitate communications between the social networking server 112, theclient device 104, and one or more of the database server(s) 124 and/ordatabase(s) 116-120. The one or more communication interfaces 304 mayinclude one or more wired interfaces (e.g., an Ethernet interface, aUniversal Serial Bus (USB) interface, a Thunderbolt® interface, etc.),one or more wireless interfaces (e.g., an IEEE 802.11b/g/n interface, aBluetooth® interface, an IEEE 802.16 interface, etc.), or a combinationof such wired and wireless interfaces.

The machine-readable medium 306 includes various modules 308 and data310 for implementing the social networking server 112. Themachine-readable medium 306 includes one or more devices configured tostore instructions and data temporarily or permanently and may include,but is not limited to, random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory(ROM), buffer memory, flash memory, optical media, magnetic media, cachememory, other types of storage (e.g., Erasable Programmable Read-OnlyMemory (EEPROM)), and/or any suitable combination thereof. The term“machine-readable medium” should be taken to include a single medium ormultiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, orassociated caches and servers) able to store the modules 308 and thedata 310. Accordingly, the machine-readable medium 306 may beimplemented as a single storage apparatus or device, or, alternativelyand/or additionally, as a “cloud-based” storage system or storagenetwork that includes multiple storage apparatus or devices. As shown inFIG. 3, the machine-readable medium 306 excludes signals per se.

In one embodiment, the modules 308 are written in a computer programmingand/or scripting language. Examples of such languages include, but arenot limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, or any othercomputer programming and/or scripting language now known or laterdeveloped.

With reference to FIG. 3, the modules 308 of the social networkingserver 112 include, but are not limited to, an application server module312, a user interface module 314, a primary language content extractor316, and a language translator module 318. The modules 308 furtherinclude a feature generator 320, a feature re-weighing module 322, anadaptive learning model generator 324, and a secondary languageclassifier module 326.

The social networking server 112 also includes data 310 to support thevarious modules 308. In one embodiment, the data 310 includes, but isnot limited to, primary written language content (e.g., human-writtencontent) 328, machine-translated content 330, and machine-translatedfeatures 332. The data 310 further includes secondary written languagecontent (e.g., human-written content) 334, secondary written languagefeatures 336, content feature weights 338, and a secondary languagemodel 340.

The application server module 312 provides the various social networkingapplications and functionalities of the social networking server 112.Such applications include, but are not limited to, a news applicationthat provides items of interest or other newsworthy items, a commentingapplication that supports the publication and/or submission of membercomments, a posting application that facilitates the publication ofmember-generated content, a connection application that establishesconnections among various members, an employment application thatsupports posting available jobs and receiving member submissions, andother such applications or combinations of applications. Thefunctionalities provided by the application server module 312 include,but are not limited to, posting textual content and/or audiovisualcontent, uploading and/or downloading audiovisual content, editing ormodifying previously posted and/or uploaded content, editing a memberprofile, editing connections of a member profile, and other suchfunctionalities or combinations thereof.

The user interface module 314 is configured to provide access to, andinteractions with, the social networking server 112. In one embodiment,the user interface module 314 provides one or more graphical userinterfaces, which may be provided using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol(HTTP). The graphical user interfaces are displayable by the clientdevice 104 and accept input from the user 122 for interacting with thesocial networking server 112. Further still, the user interface module314 may be configured to provide such interfaces to one or more clientsdisplayable by the client device 104, such as the web client 106, one ormore client applications 108, or the programmatic client 110. Byinteracting with the user interface module 314, the user 122 can uploadcontent to the social networking server 112 or can submit comments oncontent previously uploaded by other members or provided by the socialnetworking service.

The primary language content extractor 316 is configured to extractwords or phrases written in a first or primary language (e.g., English,Chinese, or another native language). In one embodiment, the primarylanguage is established by the social networking server 112 or anoperator and/or administrator of the social networking service. Theprimary language content extractor 316 may obtain the primary languagecontent from a variety of sources available via the social networkingservice. For example, the primary language content extractor 316 mayobtain the primary language content from member-submitted postings,member-submitted comments, news articles, or other items of interestobtained by the social networking server 112, and other such sources. Inone embodiment, the primary language content extractor 316 obtainsprimary language content from one or more of the databases 116-120, suchas the member activity database 116. In this regard, the member activitydatabase 116 may store member-submitted content in one or more databasetables and/or fields of the member activity database 116. Thus, theprimary language content extractor 316 obtains the primary languagecontent by referencing the corresponding one or more database tablesand/or fields of the member activity database 116. The primary languagecontent extractor 316 stores the extracted content as the primarywritten language content 328.

In addition, the primary written language content 328 may be labeled,such as by crowdsourcing the primary written language content 328. Asknown in the art, crowdsourcing is a technique whereby a group of usersare asked to perform individual tasks collectively. In this manner, manyusers perform one or two labeling tasks rather than a single userlabeling thousands of instances in the primary written language content328. In one embodiment, the social networking server 112 is configuredwith a predetermined threshold for obtaining instances of correspondingprimary languages (e.g., 12,000 instances for English, 10,000 instancesfor Spanish, 15,000 instances for Chinese, etc.).

The language translator module 318 is configured to translate theprimary written language content 328 to a secondary language. Examplesof secondary languages include English, Chinese, Spanish, or otherlanguages different from the primary language. In this regard, thesecondary language may be considered as a foreign language or othernon-native language. In one embodiment, the language translator module318 accesses an Application Programming Interface (API) of a third-partyservice provider that electronically provides machine translations ofuploaded or hyperlinked content. In this manner, the translation may beperformed by the third-party service provider and the results of suchtranslations are communicated to the social networking server 112.

The translation of the primary written language content 328 is thenstored as the machine-translated content 330. In addition, the labelsapplied to the instances of the primary written language content 328 aretransferred to the instances of the machine-translated content 330. Inthis manner, the machine-translated content 330 is labeled as well. Thenumber of instances of the labeled machine-translated content 330 maycorrespond to the number of labeled instances in the primary writtenlanguage content 328.

In addition to the primary written language content 328, the socialnetworking server 112 also obtains, or is provided with, human-writtencontent written in the secondary language. In one embodiment, the socialnetworking server 112 employs a content extraction module (not shown)similar to the primary language content extractor 316 but configured toextract content in the secondary language. Where the social networkingserver 112 maintains multiple instances of the social networking servicein different languages, this content extraction module may also obtainthe secondary language content from one or more of the databases116-120, such as the member activity database 116. In alternativeembodiments, an operator or administrator of the social networkingserver 112 uploads or transfers the secondary language content to thesocial networking server 112. The secondary language content is thenstored as the secondary written language content 334.

As with the primary written language content 328, the secondary writtenlanguage content 334 may be labeled as well. However, as there may notbe sufficient resources to label the secondary written language content334, there may be fewer labeled instances of the secondary writtenlanguage content 334. In yet another embodiment, the social networkingserver 112, via one or more of the modules 308, requests or obtainslabeled instances of the secondary written language content 334. Forexample, the social networking server 112 may be configured with one ormore predetermined thresholds for corresponding secondary languages(e.g., a 50 instance threshold for Spanish, a 100 instance threshold forChinese, a 75 instance threshold for Japanese, etc.). The socialnetworking server 112 may obtain or receive the labeled instances of thesecondary written language content 334 using techniques similar to thoseused in obtaining labeled instances of the primary written languagecontent 328 (e.g., crowdsourcing).

The feature generator 320 is configured to generate termfrequency-inverse document frequency (tf-idf) features from themachine-translated content 330 and the secondary written languagecontent 334. The tf-idf features are used to build one or more languagemodels for classifying secondary language content.

As known in the art, term frequency-inverse document frequency is anumerical statistic that is intended to reflect how important a word isto a document in a collection or corpus. The tf-idf value increasesproportionally to the number of times a word appears in the document,but is offset by the frequency of the word in the corpus, which isneeded since some words are generally more common than others. Tf-idf isthe product of two statistics, including term frequency (tf) and inversedocument frequency (idf). A high weight in tf-idf for a given term isobtained when the term has a high frequency in a given document but alow frequency in a collection of documents. The tf-idf weights assignedto given terms tend to filter out common terms (e.g., “the,” “a,” “is,”and other such common terms).

In one embodiment, the feature generator 320 is implemented as thescikit-learn package, which is an open-source platform for data miningand data analysis. The scikit-learn package is available from thewebsite “http://scikit-learn.org/stable/.” The features generated fromthe machine-translated content 330 are stored as the machine-translatedfeatures 332 and are associated with their corresponding labels from themachine-translated content 330. The features generated from thesecondary written language content 334 are stored as the secondarywritten language features 336 and may be labeled or unlabeled, dependingon whether the initial secondary written language content 334 waslabeled.

Having generated features from the machine-translated content 330 andthe secondary written language content 334, the feature generator 320then selects those features for later use in determining a secondarylanguage model. In one embodiment, the feature generator 320 is furtherimplemented as the sklearn.feature_selection module from thescikit-learn package. In particular, the sklearn.feature_selectionmodule is invoked using the “Lasso” technique for feature selection. Asknown to one of ordinary skill in the art, Lasso is a linear regressionproblem with an l₁ regularizer. Assuming that the feature matrix (e.g.,the tf-idf feature matrix) is A, and corresponding labels are y, Lassocan be formulated as the following optimization problem:

${\min\limits_{x}{\frac{1}{2}{{{Ax} - y}}_{2}^{2}}} + {\lambda{x}_{1}}$

where λ is a parameter that controls the balance between the lossfunction and the penalty. When x is determined, the non-zero entries inx correspond to the selected feature indices of A. This Lasso techniqueis applied to the features generated from both the machine-translatedcontent 330 and the secondary written language content 334. The featuresselected using the Lasso technique may also be stored as part of themachine-translated features 332 and the secondary written languagefeatures 336.

The feature re-weighing module 322 is configured to re-determine weightsfor the machine-translated features 332 and the secondary writtenlanguage features 336. The concept of instance reweighing is tore-calculate the weights for data in a selected domain to make themarginal distribution of features in a source domain and a target domainas close as possible. In this regard, the machine-translated content 330may be considered as the source domain T and the secondary writtenlanguage content 334 as the target domain H. In one embodiment, thefeature re-weighing module 322 implements Kernel Mean Matching (KMM) todetermine the weights for the source domain. The feature re-weighingmodule 322 solves the following optimization problem:

$\min\limits_{\alpha}{{{\frac{1}{m}{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{m}{\alpha_{i}{\Phi( x_{i} )}}}} - {\frac{1}{m^{\prime}}{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{m^{\prime}}{\Phi( x_{i}^{\prime} )}}}}}^{2}$

where:

-   -   x_(i) is the i-th sample in T;    -   x′ is the i-th sample in H;    -   m is the number of samples in T;    -   m′ is the number of samples in H;    -   Φ is a mapping that maps the raw features into another feature        space; and    -   α is the weight to be determined.

To solve this optimization problem, various optimization techniques canbe used, such as interior point methods or any other successiveoptimization procedure. In one embodiment, the feature re-weighingmodule 322 is implemented as the “optimize” module from SciPy, which isa Python-based ecosystem of open-source software for mathematics,science, and engineering. SciPy is available from “http://scipy.org.”

The adaptive learning model generator 324 is configured to determine aninitial language model w₀, a perturbation Δw, and a language model wthat is used to determine whether a target domain (e.g., a postedcomment) is irrelevant or a “spam” comment. The adaptive learning modelgenerator 324 determines the perturbation Δw to compensate for anydomain mismatch between the native language domain and the foreignlanguage domain. The presumption is that the difference between themachine-translated content 330 and the secondary written languagecontent 334 mainly lies in the marginal distribution, so the differencebetween w₀ (e.g., the initial language model) and w (e.g., the finallanguage model) should be made as small as reasonably possible.

To determine the initial language model w₀, the adaptive learning modelgenerator 324 leverages the set of labeled features from themachine-translated features 332. In one embodiment, the initial languagemodel w₀ is a regularized logistic regression model and may berepresented as the optimization problem below:

$\min\limits_{w_{0}}{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{m}{\log( {1 + {\exp( {{- y_{i}}w_{0}^{T}\alpha_{i}x_{i}} )} + {\lambda{w_{0}}^{2}}} }}$

where:

-   -   α is the weight determined by the feature re-weighing module        322;    -   λ controls the balance between the loss function and the        penalty;    -   x is a feature selected from the source domain T;    -   y is the label applied to a corresponding feature x; and    -   m is the number of features in the source domain T.

In alternative embodiments, however, the initial language model w₀ maybe represented as a Naïve Bayes model or a linear Support Vector Machine(SVM) model.

Having determined w₀, the adaptive learning model generator 324 thendetermines the perturbation Δw. The perturbation Δw is determined suchthat the difference between the prediction of f(x)=w^(T)x and f(x)=w⁰^(T) x is small. The perturbation Δw may be considered as the followingminimization problem:

${{\min\limits_{\Delta\; w}{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{m}{\log( {1 + {\exp( {{- y_{i}^{''}}w^{T}x_{i}^{''}} )}} )}}} + {\lambda{{\Delta\; w}}_{2}^{2}}},$which can be rewritten as

${\min\limits_{\Delta\; w}{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{m}{\log( {1 + {\exp( {{- {y_{i}^{''}( {w_{0} + {\Delta\; w}} )}^{T}}x_{i}^{''}} )}} )}}} + {\lambda{{\Delta\; w}}_{2}^{2}}$

where:

-   -   λ controls the balance between the loss function and the        penalty;    -   x″ is a feature selected from the target domain H;    -   y″ is the label applied to a corresponding feature x″; and    -   m is the number of features in the target domain H.

Using the initial language model w₀ and the perturbation Δw, theadaptive learning model generator 324 determines the language model waccording to the following equation:w=w ₀ +Δw

The language model w is then stored as the secondary language model 340.The language model w may also be stored in one or more of the databases116-120, such as the social graph database 118. In this way, the socialnetworking server 112 may store multiple secondary language models, eachassociated with a different secondary language, and retrieve such modelswhen it processes comments written in a corresponding language.

The secondary language classifier module 326 is configured to classifyone or more comments associated with a given target (e.g., an article, auser-submitted post, a status update, etc.) using the determinedsecondary language model 340. The classifications applied to the one ormore comments include whether the comment is irrelevant or a “spam”comment. Examples of such comments include advertisements, nonsensicalcomments, self-promoting comments, and other such comments. Furthermore,a comment may be an irrelevant or spam comment when the comment is notrelevant to its associated target.

In one embodiment, the secondary language classifier module 326 isapplied to comments written in the secondary language associated withthe secondary language model 340. When a given comment is identified asan irrelevant or spam comment, the social networking server 112, via oneor more of the modules 308, may prevent the given comment from beingviewed by other members of the social networking service. As oneexample, the given comment may be associated with a spam identifier andthe application server module 312 and/or user interface module 314 maybe configured to prevent the display of the given comment in response torecognizing the spam identifier. As another example, the given commentmay be prevented from being viewed by being deleted or removed from oneor more of the databases 116-120.

FIGS. 4A-4B illustrate a method 402, according to an example embodiment,for classifying and identifying comments written in a secondarylanguage. The method 402 may be implemented by one or more of themodules 308 of the social networking server 112 and is discussed by wayof reference thereto.

Initially, and referring to FIG. 4A, the primary language contentextractor 316 extracts primary language content from one or more primarylanguage sources (Operation 404). As explained above, the primarylanguage content extractor 316 may obtain such primary language contentfrom one or more of the databases 116-120. Furthermore, the number ofsamples that comprise the primary language content may include hundredsor thousands of such samples, and in one embodiment, upwards of 12,000samples. In addition, the primary language content may be labeled or, inalternative embodiments, the social networking server 112 may requestthat one or more members of the social networking service label suchprimary language content.

The social networking server 112 then performs a machine translation onthe primary language content (e.g., the primary written language content328) to obtain the machine-translated content 330 (Operation 406). Asexplained above, the social networking server 112, via the languagetranslator module 318, may leverage a translation API to obtain themachine translation of the primary written language content 328.Furthermore, and in one embodiment, the labels applied to the primarywritten language content 328 are associated with, or transferred to,corresponding contents of the machine-translated content 330.

Thereafter, the social networking server 112 determines the features ofthe machine-translated content 330 (Operation 408) and the features ofthe secondary written language content 334 (Operation 410). As discussedabove, the secondary written language content 334 may be obtained from avariety of sources and, in some instances, from one or more of thedatabases 116-120. In addition, the secondary written language content334 may also be labeled. However, there may be fewer samples to label ofthe secondary written language content 334 than of the primary writtenlanguage content 328. Alternatively or in addition, the number ofsamples of the secondary written language content 334 may approximate orbe equal to the number of samples of the primary written languagecontent 328, but fewer of the secondary written language content 334samples may be labeled. In one embodiment, the social networking server112 determines features for at least 50 samples of the secondary writtenlanguage content 334.

The social networking server 112 then selects features from themachine-translated content 330 and features from the secondary writtenlanguage content 334 (Operation 412). As discussed above, the socialnetworking server 112 may select such features using the Lasso method oneach sample of the machine-translated content 330 and the secondarywritten language content 334. The features of the machine-translatedcontent 330 are stored as the machine-translated features 332 and thefeatures of the secondary written language content 334 are stored as thesecondary written language features 336.

Thereafter, the social networking server 112 performs instancere-weighing on the machine-translated features 332 (Operation 414). Asexplained previously, the social networking server 112 may perform KMMon the machine-translated features 332. The social networking server 112may then store the recalculated weights as the content feature weights338.

Referring now to FIG. 4B, the social networking server 112 thendetermines an initial language model w₀ corresponding to the language ofthe secondary written language content 334 (Operation 416). As discussedabove, the initial language model w₀ is represented as a regularizedlogistic regression model. The social networking server 112 thendetermines a perturbation Δw (Operation 418) to account for thedifferences between the features of the machine-translated content 330and the features of the secondary written language content 334. Asexplained above, the perturbation Δw is represented as a minimizationproblem, which may involve a convex smooth function that can be solvedusing one or more gradient methods. Furthermore, the determination ofthe perturbation Δw leverages the labels previously applied to thesecondary written language content 334. Finally, the social networkingserver 112 determines the classification model w by computing the sum ofthe initial language model w₀ and the perturbation Δw (Operation 420).As explained above, the classification model w may be stored as thesecondary language model 340 and in one or more databases 116-120. Instoring the classification model w, the social networking server 112 mayalso associate the classification model w with the correspondingsecondary language.

Using the determined classification model w, the social networkingserver 112 then classifies one or more human-written comments associatedwith a given target (Operation 422). As discussed above, the target maybe a news article provided by the social networking server 112, an itemof interest posted by a member of the social networking service, or anyother item of content provided to members of the social networkingservice. As also previously explained, comments that are classified bythe social networking server 112 as being spam or irrelevant to thetarget are prevented from being displayed to members of the socialnetworking service. In one embodiment, such comments are prevented frombeing displayed by being deleted or removed from a correspondingdatabase (e.g., one or more of the databases 116-120) or by simply beingskipped when comments are being displayed via the user interface module314.

In this way, the social networking server 112 leverages an adaptivelearning technique to reduce the amount of spam or irrelevant commentsposted by members of a social networking service. Throughexperimentation, it has been found that the methodologies and modulesdisclosed herein are more accurate than other conventional methods. Inaddition, it was found that the disclosed methodologies and modules workwell even under conditions where there may not be enough sample data inthe secondary language or labeled sample data in the secondary languagefor more conventional methods. Accordingly, the technical benefits ofthese disclosed techniques present advancements in the fields of naturallanguage processing, feature recognition, and adaptive learningtechniques.

Modules, Components, and Logic

Certain embodiments are described herein as including logic or a numberof components, modules, or mechanisms. Modules may constitute eithersoftware modules (e.g., code embodied on a machine-readable medium) orhardware modules. A “hardware module” is a tangible unit capable ofperforming certain operations and may be configured or arranged in acertain physical manner. In various example embodiments, one or morecomputer systems (e.g., a standalone computer system, a client computersystem, or a server computer system) or one or more hardware modules ofa computer system (e.g., a processor or a group of processors) may beconfigured by software (e.g., an application or application portion) asa hardware module that operates to perform certain operations asdescribed herein.

In some embodiments, a hardware module may be implemented mechanically,electronically, or any suitable combination thereof. For example, ahardware module may include dedicated circuitry or logic that ispermanently configured to perform certain operations. For example, ahardware module may be a special-purpose processor, such as a FPGA or anASIC. A hardware module may also include programmable logic or circuitrythat is temporarily configured by software to perform certainoperations. For example, a hardware module may include software executedby a general-purpose processor or other programmable processor. Onceconfigured by such software, hardware modules become specific machines(or specific components of a machine) uniquely tailored to perform theconfigured functions and are no longer general-purpose processors. Itwill be appreciated that the decision to implement a hardware modulemechanically, in dedicated and permanently configured circuitry, or intemporarily configured circuitry (e.g., configured by software) may bedriven by cost and time considerations.

Accordingly, the phrase “hardware module” should be understood toencompass a tangible entity, be that an entity that is physicallyconstructed, permanently configured (e.g., hardwired), or temporarilyconfigured (e.g., programmed) to operate in a certain manner or toperform certain operations described herein. As used herein,“hardware-implemented module” refers to a hardware module. Consideringembodiments in which hardware modules are temporarily configured (e.g.,programmed), each of the hardware modules need not be configured orinstantiated at any one instance in time. For example, where a hardwaremodule comprises a general-purpose processor configured by software tobecome a special-purpose processor, the general-purpose processor may beconfigured as respectively different special-purpose processors (e.g.,comprising different hardware modules) at different times. Softwareaccordingly configures a particular processor or processors, forexample, to constitute a particular hardware module at one instance oftime and to constitute a different hardware module at a differentinstance of time.

Hardware modules can provide information to, and receive informationfrom, other hardware modules. Accordingly, the described hardwaremodules may be regarded as being communicatively coupled. Where multiplehardware modules exist contemporaneously, communications may be achievedthrough signal transmission (e.g., over appropriate circuits and buses)between or among two or more of the hardware modules. In embodiments inwhich multiple hardware modules are configured or instantiated atdifferent times, communications between such hardware modules may beachieved, for example, through the storage and retrieval of informationin memory structures to which the multiple hardware modules have access.For example, one hardware module may perform an operation and store theoutput of that operation in a memory device to which it iscommunicatively coupled. A further hardware module may then, at a latertime, access the memory device to retrieve and process the storedoutput. Hardware modules may also initiate communications with input oroutput devices, and can operate on a resource (e.g., a collection ofinformation).

The various operations of example methods described herein may beperformed, at least partially, by one or more processors that aretemporarily configured (e.g., by software) or permanently configured toperform the relevant operations. Whether temporarily or permanentlyconfigured, such processors may constitute processor-implemented modulesthat operate to perform one or more operations or functions describedherein. As used herein, “processor-implemented module” refers to ahardware module implemented using one or more processors.

Similarly, the methods described herein may be at least partiallyprocessor-implemented, with a particular processor or processors beingan example of hardware. For example, at least some of the operations ofa method may be performed by one or more processors orprocessor-implemented modules. Moreover, the one or more processors mayalso operate to support performance of the relevant operations in a“cloud computing” environment or as a “software as a service” (SaaS).For example, at least some of the operations may be performed by a groupof computers (as examples of machines including processors), with theseoperations being accessible via a network (e.g., the Internet) and viaone or more appropriate interfaces (e.g., an API).

The performance of certain of the operations may be distributed amongthe processors, not only residing within a single machine, but deployedacross a number of machines. In some example embodiments, the processorsor processor-implemented modules may be located in a single geographiclocation (e.g., within a home environment, an office environment, or aserver farm). In other example embodiments, the processors orprocessor-implemented modules may be distributed across a number ofgeographic locations.

Machine and Software Architecture

The modules, methods, applications and so forth described in conjunctionwith FIGS. 1-4B are implemented in some embodiments in the context of amachine and an associated software architecture. The sections belowdescribe a representative architecture that is suitable for use with thedisclosed embodiments.

Software architectures are used in conjunction with hardwarearchitectures to create devices and machines tailored to particularpurposes. For example, a particular hardware architecture coupled with aparticular software architecture will create a mobile device, such as amobile phone, tablet device, or so forth. A slightly different hardwareand software architecture may yield a smart device for use in the“internet of things,” while yet another combination produces a servercomputer for use within a cloud computing architecture. Not allcombinations of such software and hardware architectures are presentedhere, as those of skill in the art can readily understand how toimplement the inventive subject matter in different contexts from thedisclosure contained herein.

Example Machine Architecture and Machine-Readable Medium

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating components of a machine 500,according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from amachine-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium) andperform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.Specifically, FIG. 5 shows a diagrammatic representation of the machine500 in the example form of a computer system, within which instructions516 (e.g., software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, orother executable code) for causing the machine 500 to perform any one ormore of the methodologies discussed herein may be executed. For examplethe instructions 516 may cause the machine to execute the flow diagramsof FIGS. 4A-4B. Additionally, or alternatively, the instructions 516 mayimplement one or more of the components of FIG. 3. The instructions 516transform the general, non-programmed machine into a particular machineprogrammed to carry out the described and illustrated functions in themanner described. In alternative embodiments, the machine 500 operatesas a standalone device or may be coupled (e.g., networked) to othermachines. In a networked deployment, the machine 500 may operate in thecapacity of a server machine or a client machine in a server-clientnetwork environment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (ordistributed) network environment. The machine 500 may comprise, but notbe limited to, a server computer, a client computer, a personal computer(PC), a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a netbook, a PDA, or anymachine capable of executing the instructions 516, sequentially orotherwise, that specify actions to be taken by machine 500. Further,while only a single machine 500 is illustrated, the term “machine” shallalso be taken to include a collection of machines 500 that individuallyor jointly execute the instructions 516 to perform any one or more ofthe methodologies discussed herein.

The machine 500 may include processors 510, memory/storage 530, and I/Ocomponents 550, which may be configured to communicate with each othersuch as via a bus 502. In an example embodiment, the processors 510(e.g., a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Reduced Instruction SetComputing (RISC) processor, a Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC)processor, a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), a Digital Signal Processor(DSP), an ASIC, a Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC), anotherprocessor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, forexample, a processor 512 and a processor 514 that may execute theinstructions 516. The term “processor” is intended to include amulti-core processor that may comprise two or more independentprocessors (sometimes referred to as “cores”) that may executeinstructions contemporaneously. Although FIG. 5 shows multipleprocessors, the machine 500 may include a single processor with a singlecore, a single processor with multiple cores (e.g., a multi-coreprocessor), multiple processors with a single core, multiple processorswith multiple cores, or any combination thereof.

The memory/storage 530 may include a memory 532, such as a main memory,or other memory storage, and a storage unit 536, both accessible to theprocessors 510 such as via the bus 502. The storage unit 536 and memory532 store the instructions 516 embodying any one or more of themethodologies or functions described herein. The instructions 516 mayalso reside, completely or partially, within the memory 532, within thestorage unit 536, within at least one of the processors 510 (e.g.,within the processor's cache memory), or any suitable combinationthereof, during execution thereof by the machine 500. Accordingly, thememory 532, the storage unit 536, and the memory of the processors 510are examples of machine-readable media.

As used herein, “machine-readable medium” means a device able to storeinstructions and data temporarily or permanently and may include, but isnot limited to, random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM),buffer memory, flash memory, optical media, magnetic media, cachememory, other types of storage (e.g., Erasable Programmable Read-OnlyMemory (EEPROM)), and/or any suitable combination thereof. The term“machine-readable medium” should be taken to include a single medium ormultiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, orassociated caches and servers) able to store instructions 516. The term“machine-readable medium” shall also be taken to include any medium, orcombination of multiple media, that is capable of storing instructions(e.g., instructions 516) for execution by a machine (e.g., machine 500),such that the instructions, when executed by one or more processors ofthe machine 500 (e.g., processors 510), cause the machine 500 to performany one or more of the methodologies described herein. Accordingly, a“machine-readable medium” refers to a single storage apparatus ordevice, as well as “cloud-based” storage systems or storage networksthat include multiple storage apparatus or devices. The term“machine-readable medium” excludes signals per se.

The I/O components 550 may include a wide variety of components toreceive input, provide output, produce output, transmit information,exchange information, capture measurements, and so on. The specific I/Ocomponents 550 that are included in a particular machine will depend onthe type of machine. For example, portable machines such as mobilephones will likely include a touch input device or other such inputmechanisms, while a headless server machine will likely not include sucha touch input device. It will be appreciated that the I/O components 550may include many other components that are not shown in FIG. 5. The I/Ocomponents 550 are grouped according to functionality merely forsimplifying the following discussion and the grouping is in no waylimiting. In various example embodiments, the I/O components 550 mayinclude output components 552 and input components 554. The outputcomponents 552 may include visual components (e.g., a display such as aplasma display panel (PDP), a light emitting diode (LED) display, aliquid crystal display (LCD), a projector, or a cathode ray tube (CRT)),acoustic components (e.g., speakers), haptic components (e.g., avibratory motor, resistance mechanisms), other signal generators, and soforth. The input components 554 may include alphanumeric inputcomponents (e.g., a keyboard, a touch screen configured to receivealphanumeric input, a photo-optical keyboard, or other alphanumericinput components), point based input components (e.g., a mouse, atouchpad, a trackball, a joystick, a motion sensor, or other pointinginstruments), tactile input components (e.g., a physical button, a touchscreen that provides location and/or force of touches or touch gestures,or other tactile input components), audio input components (e.g., amicrophone), and the like.

In further example embodiments, the I/O components 550 may includebiometric components 556, motion components 558, environmentalcomponents 560, or position components 562, among a wide array of othercomponents. For example, the biometric components 556 may includecomponents to detect expressions (e.g., hand expressions, facialexpressions, vocal expressions, body gestures, or eye tracking), measurebio signals (e.g., blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature,perspiration, or brain waves), identify a person (e.g., voiceidentification, retinal identification, facial identification,fingerprint identification, or electroencephalogram basedidentification), and the like. The motion components 558 may includeacceleration sensor components (e.g., accelerometer), gravitation sensorcomponents, rotation sensor components (e.g., gyroscope), and so forth.The environmental components 560 may include, for example, illuminationsensor components (e.g., photometer), temperature sensor components(e.g., one or more thermometers that detect ambient temperature),humidity sensor components, pressure sensor components (e.g.,barometer), acoustic sensor components (e.g., one or more microphonesthat detect background noise), proximity sensor components (e.g.,infrared sensors that detect nearby objects), gas sensors (e.g., gasdetection sensors to detection concentrations of hazardous gases forsafety or to measure pollutants in the atmosphere), or other componentsthat may provide indications, measurements, or signals corresponding toa surrounding physical environment. The position components 562 mayinclude location sensor components (e.g., a GPS receiver component),altitude sensor components (e.g., altimeters or barometers that detectair pressure from which altitude may be derived), orientation sensorcomponents (e.g., magnetometers), and the like.

Communication may be implemented using a wide variety of technologies.The I/O components 550 may include communication components 564 operableto couple the machine 500 to a network 580 or devices 570 via a coupling582 and a coupling 572 respectively. For example, the communicationcomponents 564 may include a network interface component or othersuitable device to interface with the network 580. In further examples,the communication components 564 may include wired communicationcomponents, wireless communication components, cellular communicationcomponents, Near Field Communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth®components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and othercommunication components to provide communication via other modalities.The devices 570 may be another machine or any of a wide variety ofperipheral devices (e.g., a peripheral device coupled via a USB).

Moreover, the communication components 564 may detect identifiers orinclude components operable to detect identifiers. For example, thecommunication components 564 may include Radio Frequency Identification(RFID) tag reader components, NFC smart tag detection components,optical reader components (e.g., an optical sensor to detectone-dimensional bar codes such as Universal Product Code (UPC) bar code,multi-dimensional bar codes such as Quick Response (QR) code, Azteccode, Data Matrix, Dataglyph, MaxiCode, PDF412, Ultra Code, UCC RSS-2Dbar code, and other optical codes), or acoustic detection components(e.g., microphones to identify tagged audio signals). In addition, avariety of information may be derived via the communication components564, such as location via Internet Protocol (IP) geolocation, locationvia Wi-Fi® signal triangulation, location via detecting an NFC beaconsignal that may indicate a particular location, and so forth.

Transmission Medium

In various example embodiments, one or more portions of the network 580may be an ad hoc network, an intranet, an extranet, a VPN, a LAN, aWLAN, a WAN, a WWAN, a MAN, the Internet, a portion of the Internet, aportion of the PSTN, a plain old telephone service (POTS) network, acellular telephone network, a wireless network, a Wi-Fi® network,another type of network, or a combination of two or more such networks.For example, the network 580 or a portion of the network 580 may includea wireless or cellular network and the coupling 582 may be a CodeDivision Multiple Access (CDMA) connection, a Global System for Mobilecommunications (GSM) connection, or another type of cellular or wirelesscoupling. In this example, the coupling 582 may implement any of avariety of types of data transfer technology, such as Single CarrierRadio Transmission Technology (1×RTT), Evolution-Data Optimized (EVDO)technology, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology, EnhancedData rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) technology, third GenerationPartnership Project (3GPP) including 3G, fourth generation wireless (4G)networks, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), High SpeedPacket Access (HSPA), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access(WiMAX), Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard, others defined by variousstandard-setting organizations, other long range protocols, or otherdata transfer technology.

The instructions 516 may be transmitted or received over the network 580using a transmission medium via a network interface device (e.g., anetwork interface component included in the communication components564) and utilizing any one of a number of well-known transfer protocols(e.g., HTTP). Similarly, the instructions 516 may be transmitted orreceived using a transmission medium via the coupling 572 (e.g., apeer-to-peer coupling) to the devices 570. The term “transmissionmedium” shall be taken to include any intangible medium that is capableof storing, encoding, or carrying the instructions 516 for execution bythe machine 500, and includes digital or analog communications signalsor other intangible medium to facilitate communication of such software.

Language

Throughout this specification, plural instances may implementcomponents, operations, or structures described as a single instance.Although individual operations of one or more methods are illustratedand described as separate operations, one or more of the individualoperations may be performed concurrently, and nothing requires that theoperations be performed in the order illustrated. Structures andfunctionality presented as separate components in example configurationsmay be implemented as a combined structure or component. Similarly,structures and functionality presented as a single component may beimplemented as separate components. These and other variations,modifications, additions, and improvements fall within the scope of thesubject matter herein.

Although an overview of the inventive subject matter has been describedwith reference to specific example embodiments, various modificationsand changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from thebroader scope of embodiments of the present disclosure. Such embodimentsof the inventive subject matter may be referred to herein, individuallyor collectively, by the term “invention” merely for convenience andwithout intending to voluntarily limit the scope of this application toany single disclosure or inventive concept if more than one is, in fact,disclosed.

The embodiments illustrated herein are described in sufficient detail toenable those skilled in the art to practice the teachings disclosed.Other embodiments may be used and derived therefrom, such thatstructural and logical substitutions and changes may be made withoutdeparting from the scope of this disclosure. The Detailed Description,therefore, is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope ofvarious embodiments is defined only by the appended claims, along withthe full range of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

As used herein, the term “or” may be construed in either an inclusive orexclusive sense. Moreover, plural instances may be provided forresources, operations, or structures described herein as a singleinstance. Additionally, boundaries between various resources,operations, modules, engines, and data stores are somewhat arbitrary,and particular operations are illustrated in a context of specificillustrative configurations. Other allocations of functionality areenvisioned and may fall within a scope of various embodiments of thepresent disclosure. In general, structures and functionality presentedas separate resources in the example configurations may be implementedas a combined structure or resource. Similarly, structures andfunctionality presented as a single resource may be implemented asseparate resources. These and other variations, modifications,additions, and improvements fall within a scope of embodiments of thepresent disclosure as represented by the appended claims. Thespecification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in anillustrative rather than a restrictive sense.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a machine-readablememory storing computer-executable instructions; and at least onehardware processor in communication with the machine-readable memorythat, when the computer-executable instructions are executed, isconfigured to: obtain primary language content written in a first spokenlanguage; obtain secondary language content written in a second spokenlanguage; obtain a machine translation of the primary language contentby machine translating the primary language content from the firstspoken language to the second spoken language; determine an initiallanguage model, based on the second spoken language, from the machinetranslation of the primary language content; determine a language modelperturbation using the initial language model, the language modelperturbation accounting for a difference between the machine translationof the primary language content and the secondary language content;determine a classification model from the initial language model and thelanguage model perturbation, the classification model being used toclassify a given plurality of words written in the second spokenlanguage to identify whether the given plurality of words written in thesecond spoken language are irrelevant to an item of interest provided bya social media networking site in the first spoken language; apply theclassification model to a plurality of comments received in a writtenform of the second spoken language and associated with the item ofinterest; determine, by using the classification model, that at leastone comment selected from the plurality of comments is irrelevant to theitem of interest; and prevent display of the at least one comment inresponse to classifying the at least one comment as irrelevant, wherein:the selected at least one comment was provided by a first member of thesocial networking service, and the selected at least one comment isprevented from being displayed to other members of the social networkingservice that request a display of the item of interest.
 2. The system ofclaim 1, wherein the at least one hardware processor is furtherconfigured to: determine a first plurality of features from the machinetranslation of the primary language content; and determine a secondplurality of features from the secondary language content; and whereinthe determined initial language model is determined from the firstplurality of features and the second plurality of features.
 3. Thesystem of claim 2, wherein at least some of the features of the firstplurality of features are different from at least some of the featuresof the second plurality of features.
 4. The system of claim 2, whereinthe at least one hardware processor is further configured to determine aplurality of weights for a selected set of the first plurality offeatures, the plurality of weights being determined according to KernelMean Matching (KMM) using a distribution of the second plurality offeatures.
 5. The system of claim 2, wherein the language modelperturbation is further determined using at least one feature selectedfrom the second plurality of features.
 6. The system of claim 1, whereinthe initial language model comprises a regularized logistic regressionmodel.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein the selected at least onecomment is prevented from being displayed by having been deleted from adatabase configured to store the selected at least one comment.
 8. Amethod comprising: obtaining, by at least one hardware processor,primary language content written in a first spoken language; obtaining,by the at least one hardware processor, secondary language contentwritten in a second spoken language; obtaining, by the at least onehardware processor, a machine translation of the primary languagecontent by machine translating the primary language content from thefirst spoken language to the second spoken language; determining, by theat least one hardware processor, an initial language model, based on thesecond spoken language, from the machine translation of the primarylanguage content; determining, by the at least one hardware processor, alanguage model perturbation using the initial language model, thelanguage model perturbation accounting for a difference between themachine translation of the primary language content and the secondarylanguage content; determining, by the at least one hardware processor, aclassification model from the initial language model and the languagemodel perturbation, the classification model being used to classify agiven plurality of words written in the second spoken language toidentify whether the given plurality of words written in the secondspoken language are irrelevant to an item of interest provided by asocial media networking site in the first spoken language; applying, bythe at least one hardware processor, the classification model to aplurality of comments received in a written form of the second spokenlanguage and associated with the item of interest; determining, by usingthe classification model, at least one comment selected from theplurality of comments as irrelevant to the item of interest; andpreventing, by the at least one hardware processor, display of the atleast one comment in response to classifying the at least one comment asirrelevant, wherein: the selected at least one comment was provided by afirst member of the social networking service, and the selected at leastone comment is prevented from being displayed to other members of thesocial networking service that request a display of the item ofinterest.
 9. The method of claim 8, further comprising: determining afirst plurality of features from the machine translation of the primarylanguage content; and determining a second plurality of features fromthe secondary language content; and wherein determining the initiallanguage model comprises determining the initial language model from thefirst plurality of features and the second plurality of features. 10.The method of claim 9, wherein at least some of the features of thefirst plurality of features are different from at least some of thefeatures of the second plurality of features.
 11. The method of claim 9,further comprising: determining a plurality of weights for a selectedset of the first plurality of features, the plurality of weights beingdetermined according to Kernel Mean Matching (KMM) using a distributionof the second plurality of features.
 12. The method of claim 9, whereinthe language model perturbation is further determined using at least onefeature selected from the second plurality of features.
 13. The methodof claim 8, wherein the initial language model comprises a regularizedlogistic regression model.
 14. The method of claim 8, wherein theselected at least one comment is prevented from being displayed byhaving been deleted from a database configured to store the selected atleast one comment.
 15. A non-transitory, machine-readable medium storingcomputer-executable instructions that, when executed by at least onehardware processor, cause the at least one hardware processor to performa plurality of operations, the plurality of operations comprising:obtaining primary language content written in a first spoken language;obtaining secondary language content written in a second spokenlanguage; obtaining a machine translation of the primary languagecontent by machine translating the primary language content from thefirst spoken language to the second spoken language; determining aninitial language model, based on the second spoken language, from themachine translation of the primary language content; determining alanguage model perturbation using the initial language model, thelanguage model perturbation accounting for a difference between themachine translation of the primary language content and the secondarylanguage content; determining a classification model from the initiallanguage model and the language model perturbation, the classificationmodel being used to classify a given plurality of words written in thesecond spoken language to identify whether the given plurality of wordswritten in the second spoken language are irrelevant to an item ofinterest provided by a social medial networking site in the first spokenlanguage; applying the classification model to a plurality of commentsreceived in a written form of the second spoken language and associatedwith the item of interest; determining, by using the classificationmodel, at least one comment selected from the plurality of comments asirrelevant to the item of interest; and preventing display of the atleast one comment in response to classifying the at least one comment asirrelevant, wherein: the selected at least one comment was provided by afirst member of the social networking service, and the selected at leastone comment is prevented from being displayed to other members of thesocial networking service that request a display of the item ofinterest.
 16. The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 15,wherein the plurality of operations further comprise: determining afirst plurality of features from the machine translation of the primarylanguage content; and determining a second plurality of features fromthe secondary language content; and wherein determining the initiallanguage model comprises determining the initial language model from thefirst plurality of features and the second plurality of features. 17.The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 16, wherein atleast some of the features of the first plurality of features aredifferent from at least some of the features of the second plurality offeatures.
 18. The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 16,wherein the plurality of operations further comprise: determining aplurality of weights for a selected set of the first plurality offeatures, the plurality of weights being determined according to KernelMean Matching (KMM) using a distribution of the second plurality offeatures.
 19. The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 16,wherein the language model perturbation is further determined using atleast one feature selected from the second plurality of features. 20.The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein theselected at least one comment is prevented from being displayed byhaving been deleted from a database configured to store the selected atleast one comment.